


Visiting Hours

by Raccoonfg



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Common Cold, Flu, Gen, Illness, sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:10:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9407057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raccoonfg/pseuds/Raccoonfg
Summary: What's a sick fox to do when stuck in bed for the day? Fortunately for Nick Wilde he has plenty of friends to look after him, whether he likes it or not.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The following short story was written for /trash/'s Thematic Thursday event; Illness (01/19/17)

“Judy!”

“Just a second.”

“Juuu~deee!”

“Just a second!”

“I’m dying, Carrots!”

“I said ‘just a second’!”

More than just a second later, Judy stormed into Nick’s bedroom, her mouth bunched up in poorly hidden frustration. In her paw was a box of facial tissues, which she roughly slapped down on the nightstand next to his bed before hurrying back out of his room.

“Thank yooouuu,” Nick moaned childishly as he rolled under his sheets and withdrew a tissue from the box, bringing it to his black nose to blow out a salvo of snot. “You’re the best, Carrots,” he shouted towards the doorway.

“Yeah, yeah…” Judy replied, stopping briefly by the open door to finish adjusting her stab vest over her ZPD speed suit before she marched back out of view.

“Hey Jude,” Nick groaned, balling up the used tissue and lazily tossing it at a nearby waste bin. The throw had missed its mark and joined the growing pile that surrounded the metal container. “What’s with the uniform?”

“Don’t tell me you’re delirious too,” Judy grumbled from a distance, and a moment later Nick could hear the high pitched whistle of a tea kettle blowing off steam, followed by the trickle of water pouring into something.

Seconds later Judy returned to Nick’s room, looking a little less irritated and cradling a steaming mug between her paws, which she set down gently by the tissue box.

“Here,” Judy exhaled, looking a bit worn from the rushing around she had been doing, “drink this.”

Nick leaned over and scrutinized it with his heavily lidded eyes. It was some sort of yellowish tea and smelled of a number of minty herbs. Just the aroma alone made his sinuses run uncontrollably, so instead of taking the mug, he grabbed another tissue and bunched it to his nose.

“Thanks Carrots, but I ordered a latte.”

Judy rolled her eyes and sighed heavily.

“No Nick, it’s an old family remedy. It’ll help you breath. And don’t let it get too cold, because it won’t be any good then.”

“Alright,” Nick said dubiously, still giving the mug a distrustful sideways glance. “But, uh, the uniform? I’m game if you want to dress up for me, but wouldn’t a little nurse outfit make more sense?”

“Ugh.” Judy drooped her shoulders and shot Nick a withering glare. “Just because you get a sick day doesn’t mean I can ditch work too. I have a duty to the city.”

“But…” Nick pouted his lips and quivered his mouth as he whimpered “but I’m in the city too…”

“Honestly,” Judy rubbed her forehead, torn between laughter and anger. “I don’t know how your mom ever dealt with this-- Listen, Nick, I get that this cold is making you miserable, but you--” She cut herself off with a paw clenched in the air, restraining herself from losing her cool.

Meanwhile, Nick continued to look at Judy with big watery eyes as he gave a snort of his runny nose in a pathetic flat-eared display. If it wasn’t for the fact that Judy knew he was just milking it, she would have felt a whole lot more sympathetic for him.

“I’m not leaving you completely alone, okay?” Judy reasoned. “I called around and there’ll be someone to come by and check up on you every now and then, alright?”

Nick retreated back under his sheets, trying his best to form his trademark smug smile, but it only came out wilted and weak.

“Y’mean Finnick is gonna drop by in his little candy striper outfit?” Nick’s lips curled back into a crooked grin as he started to snicker. “I feel better alread- Kaff! Kaff!”

Judy recoiled from Nick’s sudden hacking fit and started to inch towards the door.

“Just get some rest, Nick,” Judy advised him before slipping out of his bedroom. “And drink your tea!”

After those final words, Nick could hear his apartment door open and close, signalling that his friend and partner had finally left him alone to fend for himself.

Laying there in bed, Nick wondered if he pushed it too far with Judy. He probably did carry on more than necessary, but it had been a long time since he knew anyone willing to pamper him when ill. How could he not indulge himself in a little self pity and helplessness at her expense?

The potent smell of the tea wafted its way over to Nick’s nostrils again, entreating him to pick it up, so he shifted his body back into an upright position and grabbed the hot mug, bringing it close to his muzzle.

He took in a deep breath of the aroma and like before the wall of mucus in his nose started to clear up; while the burning in his chest soothed a little. Taking a shallow breath, he blew off the steam and slurped a taste. The expected flavour of mint seemed to be joined with a blend of other spicy herbs and the burning sensation of it coated his mouth and throat, only not in a bad way, but in a more pleasant cleansing manner. After a few more sips, it started to feel easier to breathe, and by the time he was halfway done with the drink even his head was clearing up.

Placing the near empty mug back on his nightstand, Nick started to make a mental note to ease up on Judy the next time she came by. At the very least, not so much that she’d stop making whatever it was she put in this tea.

Finally feeling comfortable enough to get some rest, Nick settled back down under the covers and closed his eyes; his last thoughts being about just who exactly would be willing to cover for Judy.

 

* * *

 

After an hour nap, Nick found himself lying in bed, bored out of his mind. There was nothing interesting on his Chitter feed, EweTube was still only recommending a dozen ‘The Whalely Whale Show Theme Song, but every “Whale” is replaced by’ meme videos, and Flash was ignoring his texts.

Or just taking a long time in replying to his texts.

He could never really tell with him.

Nick tossed his phone back aside and pressed the back of his paw to his forehead in mock despair; lamenting the likeliness that if his cold didn’t kill him, boredom soon would.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before he heard the click of his front door and the shuffling sound of someone walking in with a plastic bag, prompting him to bolt upwards in his bed with anticipation of finally getting some sort of attention and stimulation.

“Hel~looo!” A familiar and jovial voice called out, and the roly-poly figure of Benjamin Clawhauser bounced in, carrying a shopping bag. The usual dopey smile was spread across the cheetah’s face as he twinkled the digits of his paw in greeting towards Nick.

Instinct told Nick that this was an annoying intrusion and something to be pushed away, but he was honestly so starved for animal interaction that Nick figured beggars couldn’t be choosers.

But he swore inside his mind that if Ben starts pulling up blurry Gazelle concert photos on his phone and forces him to go through the whole album, he’s going to sneeze all over him on purpose.

“Hey Ben,” Nick weakly welcomed.

Plopping down the bag on Nick’s bedside, Clawhauser wiggled and danced in place while unpacking the contents inside.

“Sooo,” Ben mewled, “I heard a certain somebody was feeling sick today…”

“That’s because Judy told you,” Nick noted bluntly.

“And I thought I’d come by and make sure my favorite fox was feeling hunky dory,” Ben continued, unimpeded.

“Because Judy asked you to,” Nick again added. “Also, I’m the only fox you know.”

Still ignoring Nick’s nitpicking, Clawhauser held up a clear plastic object that Nick slowly realized was one of those medicine spoons where you poured the contents into a measuring reservoir for accurate dosages. The corpulent cat started to hum to himself as he unscrewed a bottle of daytime medicine and poured a teaspoon portion into the reservoir.

Nick just watched passively at first, but then the next step Clawhauser took caused him to raise an eyebrow.

While swishing his tail excitedly, the cheetah took out a pawful of what appeared to be sugar packets, and emptied a couple into the reservoir with the medicine.

“Um, Ben, old buddy?” Nick raised a paw in inquiry. “What’re you doing?”

Clawhauser stopped midway through pouring the third packet in; his ears drew back in a sudden moment of self-consciousness.

“W-what?” He asked, looking a bit guilty. “It’s how my mom always gave it to me. She said it helps it go down better…”

“That explains a lot,” Nick muttered to himself. “Okay, lay it on me, Benji.”

Ben’s mood immediately perked back up and after swishing the medicine spoon for a couple seconds, he held it out and tipped it into Nick’s open mouth.

The resulting taste of over-the-counter cold medicine mixed with refined sugar was not as terrible as one would expect, but it certainly wasn’t something Nick felt he would go out of his way to experience again. If he had to describe it, he would say it was like an energy drink that had been left sitting around until it congealed into a thick syrup.

Nonetheless, he survived it, and much like Judy’s tea, it did help him feel a little bit better.

“So,” Nick spoke up, smacking his mouth and rolling his tongue around in an attempt to clean out the lingering taste, “what else you got in your bag of tricks?”

Shooting Nick a gleeful grin, Clawhauser took out the last item in his bag, a laptop, which Ben then proceeded to open and power on.

“Already have the internet on my phone, Benhauser,” Nick noted.

“Yeah, but does your phone have this on it?” Ben smugly wiggled his head from side to side as he turned the laptop around for Nick to have a look.

Playing on the screen was some sort of movie. An animated one, to be exact. Judging from the stylized characters, Nick figured it must have been a Pandanese cartoon; one of the older ones, given the muted colors and slower animation pacing.

“The heck is this?” Nick asked, causing Clawhauser to press a paw to his mouth and openly gasp.

“Why only the best Pandanese movie to watch when stuck in bed with a cold!” After an awkward pause of Clawhauser staring at Nick, clearly waiting for realization that never came, he blurted out “Cosmic Caboose Twenty-five Twenty-five!”

Nick just shrugged and shook his head, which lead Clawhauser to sigh and roll his eyes exaggeratedly.

“Okay Nick, scooch,” Ben said, waving a paw dismissively at Nick, and then more urgently. “Scooch! Scooch!”

Nick begrudgingly shifted aside in his own bed, allowing Clawhauser room to hop on and hold the laptop between them.

“Okay, so this is Tezuka,” Ben pointed towards a young tanuki in a poncho that appeared on the screen, “and he’s an orphan whose mother was killed by robots. Oh yeah! There are robots. That’s important for later. Also he needs to get to the robot planet by getting a golden star ticket for the Cosmic Caboose. That’s a train that can fly through space.”

“Ben,” Nick groaned, “Benny. Bennifer. Benvereen. I can figure this out if you just let me watch it.”

“Yeah, but you’ll miss some subtle details. Now,” Ben continued, pointing at a lady giraffe in a black dress and pillbox hat, “this is Rumiko. She has a golden star ticket. That’s important for later. Also, she has a secret, but you’ll find out about that later when they visit the space viking planet. Oh yeah! There are space vikings. That’s important for later…”

Despite Clawhauser’s running commentary, Nick managed to find some enjoyment in the outlandish tale involving planet hopping trains, ray guns, existential robots, and space vikings. At least enough to take his mind off of his cold.

Tezuka was just on the verge of escaping from the Robo Czar’s invisible reverse-time palace when the screen was suddenly obscured by a reminder alert.

“Ooo shoot,” Ben grumbled, hopping off the bed with the laptop.

Unexpectedly Nick caught himself contorting his body around in an attempt to watch just a few more moments on the screen before Clawhauser snapped the laptop shut.

“Sorry Nick,” Ben apologised, stuffing the laptop and other items back into his bag. “My break is over and you know how the chief gets when you’re late.”

Before Nick could say anything else, particularly if he could just borrow the laptop for the rest of the day, Clawhauser was already waddling out the door.

“Get well soon, Nick! Toodles!”

And with that, Nick was once again left alone with his thoughts; now filled with concern about how Tezuka could possibly escape a fortress where everything was always moving backwards.

Maybe the broken dream goggles he got from the dying robot monk? Or maybe Admiral Hargrove the Viking King was going to fly in to save the day?

Despite the multitude of possibilities flying through his mind, Nick’s eyelids grew heavy and he drifted off into another nap.

 

* * *

 

Some time later, Nick awoke with the loud bang of his apartment door being flung open, followed by heavy stomping and the constant sound of something being sprayed from an aerosol can.

His eyes had barely refocused to the light when the large frame of a rhino barged into his bedroom, waving the previously heard spray can around him. He was wearing a white surgical mask over his face and blue rubber gloves on his hands

“H-huh?” Nick squinted for a second before recognizing who the grim looking rhino was. “McHorn?”

Without replying, McHorn aimed the spray can in Nick’s direction and blasted the air between them with a vaguely lemony smelling mist. Catching sight of the can’s label, Nick realized it was disinfectant.

“Playing it safe, huh buddy- Ech! Kaff! Kaff!” Just for opening his mouth, Nick was blasted again, this time breathing in a bit of the sterile spray, causing a round of coughing.

Still unspeaking, McHorn tossed a plastic shopping bag carelessly at Nick, and then proceeded to hustle back out of the apartment, constantly spraying a protective halo of disinfectant in his path.

“Nice seeing you too, pal,” Nick grumbled as the front door slammed shut. Picking through the contents of the bag, he found a replacement box of tissues, cough drops, a bottle of apple juice and a Get Well card.

It was one of those Friendly Sunshine Greetings cards that he was pretty sure the precinct bought in bulk for occasions like this, as it had the same cartoon of a sick bear that they all gave to Officer Bjorn when he was in the hospital last month.

And the same one they gave Pennington when she broke an ankle.

And when Judy had her tonsils out.

“Seriously, who has their tonsils out at her age?” Nick asked himself as he flipped open the card and glanced over the collection of signatures.

Pretty much every signature he expected showed up inside, but there was one name that really stood out for him.

His own.

“Nicholas Wald,” he read aloud. “Gee, thanks guys.”

 

* * *

 

It was getting to around late afternoon when Nick’s stomach started rumbling. While the cough drops that McHorn delivered had done a decent job of easing Nick’s discomfort, they did very little to satiate his appetite - cherry flavoured or not.

Feeling still weak from the strain the cold was putting his body through, Nick sat at the edge of his bed, staring at the floor for a long time with a soiled tissue clenched in his paw, wondering if he could fix up a late lunch without fumbling everything in his kitchen. Just the walk from the bedroom to the living room seemed foreboding on its own.

Fortunately for him, before he even touched a single toe to the carpet, there was a short, sharp knock at his front door and the sound of it being carefully opened.

“Wilde, are you awake?” asked the deep baritone voice of Nick’s boss, Chief Bogo.

“I am, uh-” Nick paused to snort back some soggy build-up in his nose, and started wiggling back towards the center of the bed. “I’m definitely up, Chief.”

“Felling better?” Nick could once again hear the now familiar noise of plastic bags; Bogo clearly was on care package duty as well. “Hopps was going to deliver you some soup she ordered,” the burly cape buffalo walked into Nick’s room, carrying a take-away container and a plastic spoon. “But she got delayed by a case and asked me to bring it to you instead.”

As he straightened his back against the headboard into a semi-proper seating posture for eating, he wondered if Judy was actually trying to avoid him, considering how difficult he was being earlier in the day.

Although by the look of the container, she ordered it from that really nice diner in Downtown that he liked, so maybe all was forgiven.

“Well thanks for dropping in Chief,” Nick held out his paws to accept the bowl of soup, but was left hanging as Bogo kept it close to his snout, sniffing away at the contents. “Uhh… Chief?”

“I really must say,” Bogo eyed the soup quizzically before finally passing it on to Nick along with the spoon, “the whole time since I picked it up, the aroma has just been so… Intriguing. What is it?”

Nick didn’t bother answering Bogo right away; his stomach felt so ravenous that he immediately started shoveling in spoonful after spoonful until he had managed to go through a third of the bowl.

It was that perfect degree of savory saltiness, with all the ingredients cooked just right. Nick couldn’t help but sigh pleasantly before finally giving Bogo his answer.

“Chicken noodle soup,” he said with a warm smile, and continued to wolf down the rest of the broth.

“Ugh,” Bogo recoiled, suddenly disgusted by the very same soup he admired. “How revolting. It’s bad enough some of you eat fried bugs, but to boil poultry-- Wait a moment.” Bogo tilted his head back, looking like he was processing a difficult math question. “Aren’t you a vegetarian?”

“Oh, well,” Nick tipped the bowl back into his mouth “everybody has a ‘cheat day’ now and then.” And then he slurped down the remaining dregs of soup, followed by a satisfied “ahh.”

“I see,” grunted the chief. “Well, I take it your fellow officers have been treating you well?”

“Oh sure,” Nick placed down the empty bowl and briefly picked up the greeting card, giving it a shake before putting it back. “Got your card. McHorn really has a wonderful bedside manner, by the way.”

“Really? I always heard he’s a bit phobic of germs…”

Nick rolled his eyes at Bogo missing the obvious sarcasm in his voice and grabbed a tissue. “Anyway,” he continued, blowing his nose a little, “Clawhauser kept me company for a bit. Practically forced me to watch this silly cartoon of his. Cosmic Caboose Twenty-something--”

“Twenty-five twenty-five,” Bogo suddenly corrected him, and then immediately looked sideways with a hint of embarrassment. “I, uh… I’ve seen it listed on ZooFlicks.”

“Oh yeah..?” Nick glanced over at his cell and wondered for a moment if he had enough battery power to run an app for an hour or so.

“Right,” Bogo awkwardly coughed into his hooved hand. “If there’s nothing else I can do for you?”

“What?” Nick cocked an eyebrow. “No pep talk? No homespun remedies to share?”

McHorn may have been callous in his visit, but Judy and Clawhauser were at least kind enough to share their own coping habits with Nick, and it left him really eager to see what Bogo, the old posterior rod that he is, had to bring to the table.

“Hm,” Bogo snorted thoughtfully. “To be honest Wilde, I never get sick.”

“Ever?”

“Never,” Bogo reaffirmed. “Although there had been occasions where my siblings were bedridden and I observed my mother taking care of them.”

“And what’d she do?” Nick asked, curious to gleam something from Bogo’s youth. “Make them wear a compress? Read to them? Sing them a song?”

“No, no,” Bogo waved Nick’s guesses away. “Nothing of the sort. It was very simple really. Like this.” Bogo then leaned close to Nick, lightly rapped the fox’s shoulder with the back of his hoof, and said “walk it off.”

“Wow.” Nick looked at his shoulder for a second and then lazily gazed up at the chief with complete lack of awe. “Your mom sounds like a real warm gal,” he deadpanned.

“Not really,” Bogo shrugged. “She could be hard to read sometimes. Anyway, chin up, Wilde. Get plenty of rest. I expect you bright eyed and bushy tailed come tomorrow morning. Understand?”

“Sir, yes sir,” Nick limply saluted his boss and wiggled back under his sheets as Chief Bogo quietly left the apartment.

As soon as Nick heard the click of the doorknob, he sprang back up in bed and grabbed his cell phone, queuing up the ZooFlicks app and putting in a search for Cosmic Caboose Twenty-five Twenty-five.

 

* * *

 

It had been an hour or so since the credits rolled and Nick was still laying there in bed, mulling over the film’s ending.

“To think,” Nick thought out loud, “he hated robots his entire life for killing his mother, only to find out that she was actually a robot who adopted him and her killers were mammals…”

It sounded rather contrived when he said it like that, but at the time it happened in the film it was a very sincere moment.

Admiral Hargrove became way too much of a deus ex machina though. That he was sure Clawhauser would agree on with him.

As he debated whether or not he would binge watch the three sequels that were also up on ZooFlicks, there came a knock at his apartment door. Since everyone else had been welcoming themselves inside so far today, Nick ignored it. But shortly after there was a second knock.

“It’s open!” Nick shouted, but after a brief pause, yet another knock occurred. “Fine,” Nick muttered, and clumsily got out of bed.

There was a fourth knock by the time his sluggish stumble reached the living room. If it wasn’t one of the bolder members of the ZPD, who could it be? The knocking was too rapid to be Flash, and Finnick was never the sort to knock before entering.

Feeling too woozy to bother checking the peep-hole, Nick turned the knob and swung open the door to find out who he could possibly know that had actual manners.

What he saw was certainly unexpected.

“My, aren’t you a sight?” She asked with a coy smile.

Nick shuffled about embarrassingly; having been in bed all day he was still only dressed in a pair of boxers and an undershirt; not to mention that his fur was somewhat unkempt. With his fellow officers it didn’t seem like much of an issue, while this was more of a special case.

“Oh, uh, sorry about that, Ma.” Nick’s gaze dropped down to his feet, avoiding eye contact with his own mother out of self-consciousness. “C-come on in.”

The old vixen walked inside, carrying a canvas tote-bag between her paws, tail swishing about slowly. Nick closed the door behind her, haphazardly brushing the patches of fur that stuck out around his body.

She set down the canvas bag on Nick’s kitchen counter, and started to pull out what he recognized as one of the green knitted afghans she used to make when he was younger.

“Um, why don’t you sit down, Ma? Can’t I get you anything?”

Clutching the folded coverlet under one of her arms, Nick’s mother softly laughed and led Nick over to his couch with her free paw.

“Oh no, dear, I think you need to sit more than me,” she cooed. “You’re practically wobbling where you stand. Here.” Bringing him around to his couch, she gently sat him down, and then unfolded the afghan, draping it over his lap. “Have you eaten?”

“A while ago…” As if his own stomach heard mention of eating, it loudly rumbled in agreement. With all the energy his body had been burning off to fight this cold, the soup from earlier didn’t last long.

“Well you sit tight and I’ll fix you some comfort food, okay?”

“I-I’m fine, really,” Nick protested, struggling to rise from his seat. “You don’t need to fuss over me, Ma.”

“Piberius …” Mrs. Wilde shot her son ‘The Look’, which had the immediate effect of him settling back down without another word.

He was in his thirties and yet he could still never shake off the threat of ‘The Look’.

After a couple quiet minutes of Nick sitting there, listening to his mom rummaging through his cupboards, he decided to ask the obvious question.

“How’d you know I was sick?”

“Oh, well a little bird named Judy told me,” she teasingly replied from the kitchen. “I have to say, it was very surprising.”

“Oh?” Nick frowned at the thought of Judy going over his head like that; forget feeling bad about giving her a hard time, he was going to be the biggest pain in her tail the next chance he got. “And why’s that?”

“I just never expected you to be dating someone so young.”

“W-what?!” Nick sputtered. “Ma, she’s my partner!”

“Partner… Girlfriend…” his mom mused in a sing-song tone among the sounds of pots and pans clattering against Nick’s stove. “When I was your age some would say ‘life mate’. Honestly Nicky, it’s all just splitting hairs in the end.”

“No, Ma,” Nick groaned, drawing a paw against his cheek. “At work. She’s my partner on the force.”

“Okay. Okay. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea to consider settling down with a nice girl like her someday. You’re not getting any younger, Nicky.”

“Ugh. Ma…”

As time went on, the two of them bickered over all sorts of minutiae while his mother finished preparing him a light dinner. When she was finished, she came over to where Nick was sitting on the couch and laid out a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, with a spare sandwich for herself.

Despite how much she pestered him about ‘settling down’ or giving her grandkits, he couldn’t deny that getting to enjoy a cooked meal from her after a day of feeling ill really perked him up. So much in fact, that he felt himself opening up just a little bit more about discussing how things had been and what life had been like since he stopped working as an ‘independent food vendor’ and became a cop.

“It sounds like you’ve found some good friends, Nicky,” she said while dabbing away some crumbs from her mouth. “Finnegan, that business partner of yours? He wasn’t exactly the best moral influence to be around.”

“It’s ‘Finnick’, Ma,” Nick corrected her. “And, uh, yeah, you’re probably right.” He had to admit, if he was sick like this before he met Judy and joined the ZPD, he wouldn’t have gotten half the care and consideration as he did that day.

“Why, I remember when I was pregnant with you,” she chuckled, “I didn’t get any paid leave. I had to work in the accountants pool even when I had morning sickness. And you know what my boss said to me?”

“No, what?”

Leaning in close to Nick, his mother’s mouth curled up into a mischievous smirk and she said in a deep husky voice “Walk it off.”

It was in the midst of the two of them laughing together at her little anecdote that Nick started to wrack his memories over one nagging detail; something he could have sworn he used to know but just couldn’t clearly call to mind at this point.

Wasn’t her old boss in the accounting department some sort of buffalo?

 

* * *

 

The following morning Nick felt as clear headed and refreshed as ever. Possibly even moreso as there seemed to be a little added spring in his step as he walked into the precinct lobby.

He was in such high spirits, that he had been fairly eager to come in a bit earlier to talk to Clawhauser about how he managed to finish Cosmic Caboose Twenty-five Twenty-five after all. Nick especially wanted to pick his brain over what he thought of the musical scoring for the sequence when they rode the clockwork palanquin over the stardust swamp. Synthesizers were never really Nick’s thing before, but that scene’s music really opened his ears.

Oddly, the portly cat wasn’t behind his desk to greet the day’s arrivals. Instead it was Officer Tunt, the precinct’s resident slacker and ocelot, who usually handled any available desk job to avoid accepting the responsibility of field work. He didn’t seem like much of a Cosmic Caboose fan, so Nick didn’t bother striking up any conversation beyond the standard ‘hello’.

Upon entering the bullpen, Nick started to catch on that something was definitely off. There was barely half the number of officers present that usually showed up for morning briefings and those who were there looked worn and weary, barely capable of keeping their heads up. All except for McHorn, who sat in an isolated corner, eyeing his fellow officers suspiciously as he constantly rubbed sanitizing gel over his hands.

Even Judy was absent, and that was really something remarkable since he had never once come to work without her already sitting there, eagerly awaiting the morning assignments from Bogo.

Nick may not have been a detective yet, but it wasn’t hard to deduce what was going on here. His virus had spread.

Moments after he took his seat, the front door swung open and Chief Bogo walked in; his entrance almost trumpeted by Officer Pennington blowing her trunk into a wad of tissues.

“Good morning all. As many of you are aware, we are down a few officers today, due to recent…” The chief tailed off for a second and Nick was almost sure Bogo glanced in his direction. “…Outbreak. Fortunately crime reports have been down this week, so most of you will simply be on patrol, and precincts two through six will be dispatching some spare officers into our jurisdiction to make up for the lack of personnel. Temporary partnerships for the day will be posted on the bulletin at the back of the room, please ensure that you check it and group up for your assigned patrols. Dismissed.”

As everyone started to slowly file out, Nick hopped off his chair to approach Bogo, who was currently shuffling a stack of papers at the podium.

“So I guess that bug of mine really got around, huh?”

“Mm hm,” Bogo grunted.

“Judy, Clawhauser, all the rest…” Nick glanced at the scattered officers who gathered around the assignment sheet in a pathetic sniffling and wheezing huddle. “Guess you weren’t joking though, huh? You really never get sick?”

“Never,’ Bogo replied.

“Ever?” Nick pressed.

“Ev-- AH~CHOO!!!”

The massive sneeze that erupted from Bogo’s snout blew the stack of papers about the room like a gust of white leaves and all the remaining officers in the room turned in shock at the sudden outburst that came from behind them, while McHorn quickly sprayed a short mist of disinfectant in the chief’s direction.

With an almost mortified stare that Bogo burned into Nick, he curtly sniffed, inhaling a strand of snot that dangled from his nostril.

“Ever.”


End file.
